Strangely Dim

March 3, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

She stopped to talk with us for a moment in the yard where we stood. We knew it was time for them to leave, but he wasn’t with her yet.

I glanced around, noticing the little tyke, his back to the big double doors at the top of the wide ramp leading into our storage building. He seemed to be enjoying a moment of independence, having actually walked up the ramp backwards just minutes before.

But staring at us and, more specifically, at her, his countenance changed as he noticed her starting to walk toward him. Holding his right hand high up in the air, palm outward, his stubborn face told us all we needed to know.

Whatever her plans were for him, he intended to stay at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s for a while longer. His outstretched hand made that doubly clear.

It was inevitable; Over the vociferous objections of the youngster, Mom soon had the little fellow bundled into his car seat and headed for home and an overdue naptime.

Mamas know best.

They do.

I smile, thinking about the tableau in my head. I feel a kinship to the young tyke—and more than the familial one.

I have raised my hand so often over the years of my life.

Many times, like him, it was to my mother. And to siblings. Teachers. Employers. Wife. Even to my own children, as my strength wanes and their wisdom grows.

We want what we want.

Oh. I forgot one.

I raise my hand to my God. Again and again. And not in a good way. Not in worship. Not in the sense of recognition of His love and wisdom.

I raise my hand in rejection, in rebellion, in resistance.

I want what I want.

But I’m thinking tonight about a verse I learned many years ago that seems important to me.

“Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart.” (Psalm 34:4, KJV)

I won’t yield to the temptation to lay out a 3-point sermon on the verse. I feel certain that others can comprehend words they read as well or better than I.

I’ll just say this: I have been a follower of Christ for most of my life, and I’m not sure I am yet “delighting myself in the Lord” completely. Still, I want nothing more than that.

And, when I do delight myself, giving my full attention to who He is and what He has done for me, I find my desires beginning to fall in line with what He knows (and frequently shows me) is His best for me.

But I still hold my hand up at times. I still ask for just a few more minutes of doing what has caught my attention. A few more days of seeking my own good pleasure.

But, more and more as I travel this way, I find myself realizing the good that He has always desired for me.

Always.

And, I think that’s what the journey has always been intended to bring about in us.

As we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and His blood cleanses us from sin. I think the disciple named John wrote about that in his later years.

Why do we continue to act like little children, even into our old age?

I’ve been practicing on another song at Mr. Kimball’s old grand piano recently. Well, I’m working on more than one, but this one is special to me.

Called “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” it was written just over a hundred years ago. The hymn is still a favorite for many, although in recent years, it has largely been reduced to a chorus, the lovely verses having been abandoned by most in this modern day.

As I write this, I’m not quite ready to share a piano performance of the song, although it may not be much longer. Time will tell.

But the lyrics to the old hymn have been whirling around in my head. The little boy’s outstretched hand, indelibly imprinted on my memory, reminds me again tonight of the words.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus;
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.”

I’m looking. And delighting.

The road is long. But there’s room for more along the way. You could look and delight with me.

And, if going home to take a nap is part of the schedule, that’s certainly okay with me.

“Oh soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.”
(from Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, by Helen Howarth Lemmel)

Facade

November 5, 2025November 5, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Dealing with disappointment is hard.

I had plans last week. They were pretty specific. We would start the week out with a yellow house but, with the help of a crew of skilled men, would end it with a green one (or, if I win the argument about what that color actually is, a gray one).

It didn’t work out.

The job foreman told me, as they began on Thursday, that he was certain the work would be finished that week. That was before.

The men worked. The old siding came off. The new siding began to cover the walls.

On Saturday, it became evident they wouldn’t finish that week. Not because they failed in their efforts, but because the boxes of siding were empty, and the front of our home was still covered only in insulation and house wrap. The skilled men couldn’t put up materials they didn’t have.

What a disappointment!

We had guests coming to dinner on Sunday! The neighbors have to drive past the unsightly facade of our house, some of them several times a day.

I am not happy. The job foreman and his scheduler came to see me on Monday afternoon. It could have gotten ugly. I know how to make people understand how unhappy I am. I have words inside me to communicate that to them. I have facial expressions to help with that communication.

I didn’t say the words. I smiled at—and even laughed with—the men instead.

Dealing with disappointment is hard. It is. But this is simply an inconvenience. Those men are human beings who feel and care.

And that stack of wood, rocks, and glass is just that. Stuff.

More than that, the man I want to be can’t say those hurtful words without diminishing any opportunity I will ever have to show the love of God to those people whose steps were guided right to my door by Him.

Our guests came to dinner on Sunday. They walked right past the ugly facade of the house and into our home. We laughed. We prayed. We broke bread together. There was music. And joy.

Inside our homes, we share the grace and the love of Christ. The outside walls are just part of a structure, affecting the realities of life not at all, unless we let our disappointments change the course of our interactions with other souls who walk this dirt with us.

And I don’t think we want to know what chaos is caused when we mistake the facade for the heart and soul.

I was wrestling with whether to write about this tonight when an email was delivered to my smartphone. It was one of hundreds I receive in the course of any given week from other writers sharing their articles. I admit that often I simply delete these messages. I assume they do the same with mine.

But for some reason, tonight I hesitated as my finger hovered near the image of the trash can. I breathed a prayer.

“Make this something, God. Something I need.”

As I opened the email, the first words my eyes fell on were the familiar ones from Jeremiah that my father was so fond of. I had actually considered them as I wallowed in my disappointment this week.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

It was something. Yes, even something I needed. But not for the reason you might expect.

They’re not words to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I know we use them that way. But they aren’t.

God had just directed Jeremiah, His prophet, to tell the nation of Israel that they were going to be torn from their homes and live for years in slavery and want in a foreign land. All because they needed to learn to trust Him.

The words of that verse are certainly words of promise. They are words of encouragement. But they would only come true in the middle of greater disappointment than most of us will ever experience.

In the midst of the wasteland we call failure, God promises success and blessing.

Our disappointments are not where hope ends, but where our future is assured!

I know many who read these words have other, more serious disappointments to deal with than my piddly little siding problem.

Jobs have been lost. Family members have walked away from them. The doctor hasn’t given them any hope for things to get better. Dreams have been altered or given up because of changing realities.

You need to know that even in this season of trial, our God is working out His plan for our lives.

In the midst of pain, grace and mercy abound.

It’s not the time to give up, not the time to attack innocent bystanders. Now is when we learn to walk with Him, in His strength, and in His love. Even if we walk in the dark, we are putting one foot in front of the other, as He lights the path ahead.

We want the beautiful facades.

He’s working on the astonishing home inside.

The day is coming when there will be no more disappointments; when we’ll really be home.

Just not yet.

And that’s okay. Because I trust the One who promises it.

Completely.

“Home is the best word there is.”
(Laura Ingalls Wilder)

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
(Philippians 2:13, KJV)

Humble Beginnings

October 28, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

It was ten years ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I had taken one last trip back home with my siblings, returning with a U-Haul trailer full of memories—rife with laughter and tears.

From the treasure hoard I brought back, I shared an ancient photo with my friends. The image showed five little urchins posing in front of a battered little trailer house. I see a single tricycle to be shared between the five, along with a “swamp cooler” in front of the abode—the closest we ever came to having an air conditioner there in the tropical heat of the Rio Grande Valley.

When I shared the photo on social media, one friend who had grown up with me wrote words that felt like a slap in the face. He was merely stating a fact and certainly didn’t intend the words to dredge up the feelings they did.

“Humble beginnings.”

I admit it, I’m easily distracted. It doesn’t take much to stir up old memories and sometimes, the unpleasant feelings that can accompany them.

Did I say I remember it as if it were yesterday? The strange thing is that the episode with the photo occurred ten years ago, but the pain (which I remember no less clearly) originated over six decades ago.

Back then, an older boy, probably the ripe old age of 9, ridiculed 7-year-old me on the school bus, deriding me for being poor enough to have to live in that trailer house.

I remember blubbering that I didn’t live in the trailer anymore. My parents had purchased the old house across the street just 6 months before that bus ride.

He didn’t believe me. But when we arrived at the stop where my siblings and I were to alight, I grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. Dragging him toward the bus window, I crowed in triumph.

“Come here! See! That’s where I live!”

I don’t know why my mind holds onto some events and not to others. Nor why those episodes pop into my head at the oddest of times.

We had a special service at our fellowship a day or two ago. The kids led worship, both in English and Spanish. Then the youth pastor spoke, his words being translated into Spanish as well.

I’ve told you before that I sometimes have trouble following the trail the preacher lays down in his sermon, haven’t I? A thought arrests my brain, and I can’t really move past it.

I couldn’t help it. The scripture for the young man’s sermon was from John 1, verses 35 to 39. In the text, John the Baptist tells his followers again that Jesus, who is passing, is the Lamb of God.

Two of them desert John and follow after Jesus. When He saw them following Him, He asked them what they wanted. They replied that they just wanted to see where He lived.

Jesus simply replies, “Come and see.”

Wait. All they wanted was to see where He lived? How odd!

But then I got to thinking. John the Baptist lived in the desert. He ate grasshoppers and wild honey. Wore camel hair shirts.

I can just hear them when they get to the house where Jesus is staying.

“Wow! This is better than that trailer house—I mean—desert cave, any day! Let’s follow Him for a while.”

For a minute, I even thought I might have heard a strain or two of the theme song from The Jeffersons (a TV sitcom from the ’70s and ’80s).

“Movin’ on up, to the East Side…” (You sang that in your head, didn’t you?)

He showed them where He lived!

But, I think there was more to it than that.

Humble beginnings don’t preclude moving to better surroundings. We were never intended to finish in the place in which we began.

It should be evident that I’m not talking about a physical location. I know people who have lived at the same address all their lives. I also know, beyond doubt, that they have grown and become different people from who they were at the outset.

The apostle, for whom I am named, reminded the folks in Philippi that their Redeemer would continue the work He had begun in them until they moved on to their permanent home. (Philippians 1:6)

He wants us to be content with what we have physically, but never with where we are spiritually.

The folks who followed Jesus while He walked the earth saw where He lived. Not the place, but the Person.

The place He lived changed again and again. The Person never did, walking constantly in grace and love. And in service.

The pastor reminded us the other day (I did hear other things he said!) that Jesus still says, “Come and see.”

And we, growing into the people of grace, should be saying with Him, “Come and see.”

Saying it, not in pride and triumph, but in love and humility. To all whose paths we cross, taking them by the sleeve and showing them.

Come and see.

Ven a ver.

“You are the only Bible some unbelievers will ever read.”
(John McArthur)

“He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
    out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
    and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
    They will put their trust in the Lord.”
(Psalm 40:2-3, NLT)

The Road

October 2, 2025October 2, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t sit down to write anything profound tonight. I really need to head for bed soon. The Lovely Lady says I do. She thinks when I’m not feeling great, sleep is the cure.

But, for some reason, sleep doesn’t come easily these nights. It could be the noises from my breathing and the periodic coughing bouts. It could be the aches and pains that come with growing older.

Could be.

I think sometimes I just need to remember things, and nighttime is a good time to do that.

Tonight, for some reason, I remember roads.

I remember straight-as-an-arrow roads in the Rio Grande Valley that ran out in front of the old green 1957 Ford station wagon as far as my young eyes could see. I was seven or eight then.

The future seemed as far away as that horizon did, and I was sure the road to that future was just as straight, too.

I remember roads that twisted and turned into the Sierra Nevada mountains above my grandparents’ house in the Central Valley of California. Mostly, I watched them from the back seat of the 1971 Ford station wagon with fake, plastic woodgrain on the side. I was fifteen.

The teen years didn’t feel all that happy, but I was sure the future was closer, like that next curve. Then too, I just knew the road I was on wasn’t quite as straight and narrow as I had once thought. And, as we climbed the steep mountains up to where the giant sequoias stood, it was clear there was danger along the way, bringing fear. Side by side, fear grew along with awe at the astonishing beauty of the steep slopes and abrupt precipices.

At nineteen, I remember a highway that carried me out of Texas one winter’s night and into a future I couldn’t yet see. I pulled over into the roadside park just across the state line in Oklahoma, and threw up beside the car.

The future was still up ahead, but that night, I wondered if it was too late to turn back to the safety of the past.

So many roads. A road to a church. A road where, at a stop sign, I leaned over and kissed the red-headed girl beside me for the first time, returning to that spot nearly a year later to put a ring on her finger. A road to a hospital. That one I’ve traveled more times than I care to remember. And, lots of different roads across and under old bridges the Lovely Lady and I have searched out in our leisure.

But tonight, I’m really thinking about two specific roads in recent memory.

A couple of weeks ago, not so far from our town, the Lovely Lady and I stood on a dirt road out in the country, along with our adult children and their spouses, as well as their children. The nice man pointed his camera, with its long lens, at us and recorded some memories.

We kicked up some dust, and the two-year-old grandson sat playing in the dirt and rocks to get his picture taken. I wandered over to the barbed-wire fence and let the black angus mama cow lick my fingers, leaving slobber dripping from them.

I haven’t seen the photos yet, but they’ll only be the icing on the cake after the joy of being on that road with this particular group of people.

And then, there was the gathering last Sunday afternoon in the turnaround (educated folks call it a cul-de-sac, I think) of the little road we live on now. Neighbors actually sat in chairs on the pavement around tables and shared our food, along with our friendship.

In the middle of the road, we broke bread and told our stories to each other, laughing and remembering the past.

Remembering the past; imagining the future.

Sappy stuff, isn’t it?

But somehow, I think we need more of the sappy today. Our daily lives are inundated with bad news from every source possible. And inexplicably, we’ve bought into the notion that we must digest and regurgitate as much of the bad news as possible, imposing our opinions on everyone who will stop to listen or read.

Can I say this? Most of life is lived on backroads and dirt lanes, regardless of how much time we spend speeding down the limited-access highways. Even in the big cities, most of the hours of one’s life are lived in relative solitude, surrounded by friends and family. And sometimes, alone.

Those familiar with my writing will know I’m a fan of Mr. Tolkien and will have read one or another of his “road poems” at the bottom of my essays in the past. I think I won’t disappoint when one is included below.

Some roads are of vital importance to the direction of our lives. The road we choose to walk in our faith is the most crucial.

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
(Matthew 7:13-14, NLT)

And often, we walk that road of faith together. While the choice to walk it is made by each of us individually, company along the way is essential to our staying on the road.

We need each other as we travel. Otherwise, how will we get up when we fall?

I’m grateful for the company on the road. These folks are some of God’s best gifts, in my mind.

I think it may be time for sleep now. She could actually be right, you know. She’s been my company along the road for nearly five decades now.

Help, when we fall.

And someone to make us laugh once in a while.

Good gifts.

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.”
(from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you.”
(Deuteronomy 32:7 NIV)

Not Just Another Sunset

September 19, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

She left after supper. Just took her keys and walked out the door, leaving me in the dark. I usually wait for her here. But tonight, as she pulled out of the drive, I received a text from her.

I thought perhaps she was missing me already and was sending a little note with a heart emoji. You know—just because. But no. There was just one word in the text.

“Sunset?!!!”

I don’t suppose it’s any surprise to my readers that I love sunsets. Come to think of it, I’d love sunrises too, except they come too early in the morning for me to enjoy them much.

So, sunsets it is.

I got up from my easy chair and, taking a minute to get my equilibrium (I have to do that these days, you know), headed out of the dark into the twilight of a lovely, cloudy evening.

I walk about a block to the west of our home to get clear photos of the sunsets—because I know my friends really, really want to see every sunset I stop to admire. And, they don’t want to see a pic of the back door to Patty’s house.

There were lots of folks out in the not-dark. Walking, cycling, scootering (is that a word? Oh well, it is now.), it was the perfect time to be out. I really didn’t want company, though. Which was fine, because nobody but me ever stands at the edge of that field and snaps photos of an everyday occurrence like the sun going down.

Truthfully, the sunset itself wasn’t that beautiful tonight. I was a little late getting there; the clouds were too heavy over the westering sun. The few photos I snapped weren’t spectacular; just a pinky orange sky, almost hidden behind the trees.

Disappointed, I turned away from the field. Oh well, another day it would be more spectacular.

As I turned, I discovered that someone else was, indeed, standing at the edge of the field and snapping a photo of the sun!

The young lady, most likely a student at the nearby university, didn’t stay long. A couple of snaps, and she too pivoted away from the lowering light source.

“Great minds…,” I said. I’m nothing if not a great conversationalist.

She laughed, and we talked for a few seconds about the suitability of the field for our shared activity. I mentioned that I always go all the way to the edge of the alley to make sure there are no annoying power lines in the photos. She agreed that it was a necessity.

It was not a notable encounter. I couldn’t pick the young lady out of a lineup at the local jail, if it were necessary (why it would be is beyond me). We don’t know each other’s names, nor where the other resides.

But the connection we made is impossible to miss. To me, it is, anyway.

It’s a little thing, I know. Still, we old folks talk about the young adults of today as if they have no appreciation of the good things, the things that really matter. And yet, here was this young lady, no older than some of my grandchildren, standing at the edge of the same field this old man frequents and soaking in the glory of God’s creation.

And in a season when, to some of us, hope for the future seems to be an insubstantial commodity, I’m holding tightly on to whatever I can grasp between my gnarled, arthritic fingers.

She turned along the main road, and I walked across it and back toward home. But something else was tugging at the edges of my brain. Now, what was it? Oh well, it would come sooner or later.

I was back into the darkness of my house when I remembered the elusive thought. I had seen a lot of clouds in the southern sky, and they had a little orangey pink tinge to them. Maybe they were worth another look.

Back into the golden hour, I wandered, following the same steps across the busy street from the university. If I hadn’t broken into a trot, that four-wheel-drive pickup might have had to hit its brakes, and it was clear the driver had no such intention.

The sunset was still mediocre, at best. But, looking south, I gasped at the thunderheads piled high just above the horizon. Purple, orange, and indigo, they roiled in the fading light.

It’s always a surprise to me when I see the clouds that are not in the proximity of the declining sun sharing its glorious light and color. I suppose it’s because I think of clouds as dark and dense.

In truth, clouds naturally radiate the colors of the setting sun. If there is a long line of them along the horizon, with clear skies above, the overwhelming coloration travels as far as the eye can see, around the circumference of the circle of sight.

And somehow, as my mind is apt to do, the lesson of light passed by the transient clouds reminds me that we ourselves are light bearers.

The light we bear was never our own. We never produced it ourselves.

It was never ours to hold and hoard.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16, NKJV)

With a head full of these thoughts, I wandered across the street again, taking the overgrown track through the jungle behind my house and past the old barn, itself covered by a curtain of vines, all doing their best to help time and gravity bring it to the ground.

There are still sad things in this world.

It’s okay to grieve them.

But, grieving is “for a moment”. The light is eternal. And, we must share it—with our children and our children’s children—as well as with the world that is dying for those brilliant rays to pierce the darkness where they are waiting.

The Light has shined in the darkness. The darkness will never overcome it.

I’ll admit it. These were my thoughts as I went back into the darkness of my house to await the return of the Lovely Lady, who always makes its rooms brighter for me.

But, inside me, the light is blazing like noontime on a summer day. I think I’ll keep sharing it.

Even with these clouds piled high around, His beauty will shine through.

It’ll be brighter with you walking alongside.

Are you coming with?

“If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.”
(G.K. Chesterton)

“…that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”
(Philippians 2:15, NKJV)

Living in Luxury

August 7, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Nineteen sixty-one. It was a year of change for my family. Most wouldn’t have thought the changes all that beneficial.

We weren’t living in luxury. Dad had intended to support his family with a career in the U.S. Navy. For thirteen years, he had done just fine, advancing to the rank of a Petty Officer Radioman. Then one day in 1961, he was out, purportedly with a chronic illness from which he had never suffered.

Returning to the Rio Grande Valley, where he had been stationed for a time, Dad, along with his red-headed wife and five children ranging from ten down to four years old, were living in their small mobile home parked in an orange grove, thanks to the kindness of the old farmer who owned it. The erstwhile radioman became a ditch digger with the local natural gas supplier.

You can imagine that the five urchins living in that little mobile home understood rather rapidly what it was like to survive on a tight budget. I don’t remember hearing much complaining, but it’s never easy to cut back on extras, especially for a 4-year-old who already had a sweet tooth, loving Butternut candy bars and Dr. Pepper.

One day, all the little waifs were delighted to receive a surprise gift from our grandfather. The old man (he was never anything but old to me) was in no way blessed with a surplus of luxuries in his own life, but he knew his grandchildren would enjoy the shiny silver coins he shared. Each child got a coin of their very own.

What a treasure! The Liberty silver dollars, minted forty years before in the follow-up to the Great War (commonly known to us now as World War I), featured the head of Lady Liberty on one side and a victorious eagle on the reverse, clutching an olive branch in its claw.

The little stair-step ragamuffins gathered around our parents, silver dollars clutched in dirty hands, begging to go to the grocery store immediately. Can you blame us?

A dollar! One hundred pennies!

Images of bubble gum (with Bazooka Joe comics wrapped around them!) and candy bars, along with a toy whistle or a rubber ball, flew through my tiny brain like wealth so vast, it couldn’t be grasped. A dollar to this tiny, poor tyke was luxury beyond his dreams.

We went to town. But not to the grocery store. Not at first anyway.

All stuffed into the 1957 Ford station wagon, we sat and waited for Dad at the bank. It wasn’t clear why our patience needed to be tried by such a delay, but it just gave us more time to jabber to each other about what we would buy at the HEB store down the highway.

Before we knew it, here came Dad with a small stack of dollar bills in his hand. A crisp, new one-dollar bill for each of the siblings. Even this little chubby four-year-old got one.

“Now, you can spend your dollars at the grocery store,” Dad said, taking the shiny silver coins from each of us in turn.

We thought it was a strange thing to do. A dollar is a dollar, isn’t it? But it didn’t matter to us. We were on our way to heaven-on-earth!

Over the years, we would catch sight of the silver dollars in the little box in Dad’s closet. Each time, one of us would exclaim, “Oh! There are our silver dollars from Grandpa!”

And Dad would quietly reply, “No. These are my silver dollars from Grandpa. I bought them from you.”

It took me a lot of years to understand what had happened back when my siblings and I sold our grandfather’s precious gifts to us.

Like Esau with his birthright, we happily sold our gifts from Grandpa to assuage the temporary desires that drove us. And, like Esau, the desire returned again and again. The birthright never did.

Gone. Squandered like water onto sand.

Fortunately, for the siblings in this story, that wasn’t the case. A wise father, as he approached the end of his lifetime, came for a visit with us.

He had a box with him. And, reaching into that box, he brought out silver dollar after silver dollar, one of which he handed to each of the siblings who were present.

“They were a gift from your grandfather. Now, they’re a gift from me.”

It was always his plan. For over forty years, he kept them. To give to us.

In our naivety, childish and undisciplined, we only saw the monetary value of the gift. He knew the gift was worth much more than that. He knew we would come to understand that some day.

As my mind turns over the story (I’ve had a lot of years to think about it, you know), I begin to wonder if we ever outgrow our naivety. Or our childishness.

So much wealth, we are surrounded by. So much.

And we miss it. Snatching at the useless, temporal pleasures of this world, we cannot see the great treasure we’ve been given. Gifts from above, sent from a loving Father.

One of my poet friends wrote the words recently. Her words arrested me. I mean that. Stopped me in my tracks. They are still shocking.

I hope she won’t mind me sharing a few of them here:

“I live in luxury of holy things
They are the sweet possessions of my soul.
My life is filled with all His Spirit brings.”
(from Luxury, by April Petz)

Luxury of holy things!

We are surrounded by them, covered by them, and undergirded with them. Not just enough, but a surfeit of gifts from our Creator.

It’s not my intention to make a list of these holy things. I’d never be able to enumerate them. Besides, there are books and articles written by many others more well-equipped to describe them.

I will say that there are more things on the list of holy things than ever those writings could contain. And, it doesn’t hurt to let our minds run freely over them frequently.

James says that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights. (James 1:17)

Every one of them.

Perhaps it’s time to look for them ourselves.

I’m not going to tell you my silver dollar is one of the holy things. But it symbolizes one of them to me.

Every time I look at it—even if it’s only to see it in my mind’s eye and turn it over in my thoughts once again—I consider the holy gift of the love of a family; Love passed down from an old man to his grandchildren; Love from a father who helped his children to understand the importance of treasuring the gift.

Oh! Do you know what the numismatists (that’s a coin collector to you and me) call that silver dollar?

It’s the Peace Dollar, designed with a message of peace to a war-weary world after the horrible carnage of the Great War, one many hoped would be the war that brought an end to all wars. The word is inscribed right down at the victorious eagle’s feet on the reverse side of the coin.

World peace wasn’t to be. Peace doesn’t come at the bidding of politicians and economic manipulations of the supply of coins.

It’s a luxury, given by a loving Heavenly Father to His children.

If only we treasured it as much as He does.

Peace.

What a luxurious gift!

Another one of His invaluable holy things. A gift to us in the chaos and the strife, in the terror and the agonizing pain.

And, it’s ours—a gift from the heart of our Loving Father.

And somehow, I know, His holy things are made more holy as they are shared with others.

And the more we give them away, the wealthier we become in holy things.

Peace. Hope. Joy. Love. Grace. Mercy. I start the list again in my mind, but am overwhelmed by the wealth.

How rich we are in the only things that matter.

But, I’d still take a Butternut candy bar, too.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.“
(John 14:27, KJV)

“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.”
(Erich Fromm)

I Have Ears

June 22, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I heard him say it. I just wasn’t listening. Well, I was listening, but I wasn’t hearing.

Wait! That’s not right, is it? How would I hear, but not be listening, and at the same time have the inverse of that be true?

Maybe I could simply tell you what occurred and let you decide. If you’re listening, that is.

My friends and I had talked about many things that day. I really don’t remember what we were discussing at the moment the statement was made. It doesn’t matter. Not really.

“This is the reason I don’t go to Bible studies anymore.”

Not one of us caught it. It was probably because a couple of other voices said words simultaneously.

We said goodbye soon thereafter. Nobody said a word about what he had blurted out.

I was in the car driving home when the words came back to me, and I caught myself thinking, “I wonder what he meant by that?”

I played back the words a hundred times in my head over the next week. I wondered if I had reverted to my old argumentative ways and was the reason for his unhappiness.

When I saw him again, I asked him. And, I listened to his answer. I did.

I think we may say things a little differently from now on. We don’t ever want that sentiment to grow from the scope of bygone Bible studies to include get-togethers with friends. I don’t think it would with this friend, but why would we take the chance?

Friends listen to each other. And sometimes, they change how they interact with each other.

He’s not mad at anyone. We didn’t do irreparable harm.

This time.

Again and again, the Teacher ended His little life-lessons with the words, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:15, Mark 4:9, 23)

I have ears. Arguably, they don’t function as well as they once did, but I have ears to hear.

And yet, I miss the message. Again and again, I miss it.

In recent years, we’ve begun to use the phrase “tone deaf”, meaning that someone is insensitive to the undercurrents in a conversation. Hearing the words, but not understanding what is actually being said.

Guilty.

I am. Tone deaf.

Again and again.

I want to hear the people in my life. It may be that relationships depend on it. Perhaps, even someone’s life.

I want to hear the voice of the Teacher, too. Even more depends upon that.

I’m listening. Again.

Maybe we could all do that.

All ears.

Hearing.

“Maybe I was absent, or was listening too fast.
Catching all the words, but then the meaning going past.”
(from Aubrey, by David Gates & Bread)

So he said to Samuel, “Go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went back to bed.
(1 Samuel 3:9, NLT)

It’s Just Stuff. Really. Stuff.

June 11, 2025June 11, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“He thinks less than he talks, and slower; yet he can see through a brick wall in time (as they say in Bree).” *

Mr. Tolkien didn’t know me; really, he didn’t. But he described me fairly accurately in the quote above.

I do talk more than I think. Sometimes.

And, fortunately, I can see through the brick wall in front of me. Eventually.

I’ve been in a funk recently. I should mention that I looked up the phrase “in a funk” online to be sure it was still in common enough use for most of my readers to know what it means. The obliging AI response suggests I’ll not have to explain it to very many of you.

I also wondered if I should use the term “woebegone” to describe my state of mind. But then, I’d need to explain the word’s origin from Old English. I might even have to use the definition that Garrison Keillor (a well-known storyteller and humorist) frequently gave for the fictional community he told about. He said the name Lake Wobegon was the native American word for “the place where we waited all day for you in the rain.”

But I’m not sure the description of my state is all that important. I just needed to know why I was in that state, be it in a funk or woebegone, or both of them at once.

Finally, the light has begun to dawn. It took a while, but after a few weeks of wandering in the fog, I think I finally understand why I’ve been unhappy.

The Lovely Lady who lives at my house helped me along the way the other day when she expressed amazement that I’m keeping up with my schedule pretty well. I usually get overwhelmed when there are too many events in a week for me to remember (usually, more than three will do it for me).

What she didn’t realize is that it’s been busy enough lately that this old man has actually learned how to use the calendar app on my smartphone for something other than keeping track of the birthdays of people I love.

As she talked about my schedule, and I thumbed through the past couple of weeks of events, I think I noticed that brick wall becoming a little translucent. I could almost—but not quite—see through it.

The things in my calendar are almost exclusively about possessions—things over which I claim ownership. Some of them are about money and insurance for the things I think I own.

And, with that thought, the bricks become completely transparent.

Why did Jesus say that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven? (Matthew 19:24)

Why is it so hard for me to give up my claim to the stuff of earth? The rich man in the reference above was scrupulous and unswerving in his obedience to God. With the rules and legal requirements, he was.

He just couldn’t turn loose of the things he held.

The storms of a few weeks ago have damaged our house, as well as our vehicles. The unexpected mechanical failure of both vehicles right before has already required a fair outlay of money to remedy. And now, dealing with contractors, insurance adjusters, and repair shops causes stress—a lot of it.

It’s not that the resources haven’t been provided. They have. But somehow, I’ve taken ownership of those resources. And, I don’t want to let go of any of them.

And God said to Moses, “What’s that in your hand?” And when Moses answered that it was a tool of his trade, his staff, God said, “Well, throw it on the ground.” (Exodus 4:2)

I sympathize with Moses. I hear the voice in his head arguing (the same voice is in mine).

“This is all I have for my livelihood. I was counting on this to keep me alive. Why would you want me to let go of it?”

Easy, isn’t it?

Just open your fingers.

Let go.

It was never mine. Never.

Freedom isn’t only about not being under the thumb of someone else. Chains are too often of the invisible sort, and just as likely to be of our own making.

When the stuff of this earth holds us more tightly than the bonds of His love, we are truly in captivity—carrying a burden He never meant for us to shoulder.

I’m better now.

Letting go. Again.

But, I’m realizing there will be more brick walls to see through along the road I’m walking. I could use some help with the next one. And the one after that.

I hope you’ll be willing to help. But could you, maybe, not talk as much as I do?

And, think a little faster?

“One who cannot cast aside a treasure at need is in fetters.”
(Aragorn in The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold.”
(from the hymn, Take My Life and Let It Be, by Frances Ridley Havergal)

*from The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

What If It’s My Fault?

May 25, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I heard the little crunch as I chewed my food in the lovely little restaurant. I felt it too, right between my teeth.

But I was eating pasta. There wasn’t supposed to be a crunch. Not even if it was, indeed, al dente. My tongue snaked over to the tooth I suspected of being the culprit.

Ow!

That was sharp! As the dental specialist had warned me, the filling he put in last week was only temporary. I just expected it to be a bit less temporary than that.

I called the emergency number for the clinic. It’s possible I shouldn’t have started the message I left them with the words, “I’m not sure you could call this an emergency…”

Twenty-four hours went by before they returned my call. It’s not an emergency. It must not be. The kind young lady told me it wasn’t.

I’ll be just fine. But the 24 hours gave me time to think.

In that 24-hour interlude, my mind went back 40 years. Really. I saw it the first time I walked into his instrument repair shop. The sign over Bill’s workbench left no room for argument.

“Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

It only stands to reason. I was in the music business for over 40 years myself. I saw it again and again. Customers would wait until the day before a performance or playing test, and decide to bring in their instrument to be repaired. An emergency.

I never had a sign to which I could point. On several occasions, I wished I had.

It was their own doing. No one would have faulted me for putting up the sign.

But, back to the present, I called the emergency phone number. On a holiday weekend, I expected the unseen folks on the other end of the line to consider it an emergency for themselves.

They don’t.

My brain has been worrying at a question for longer than the 24 hours of waiting; really for over a week. Like a Labrador puppy with an old bone, I’ve been chewing at the puzzle.

I sat with my esteemed coffee group one day a week ago, and I put the problem to their collective wisdom. They each, after all, possess a college degree which grants them the privilege of being addressed as doctor by their students and peers. (My old friend reminds me that none of them is the kind of doctor who can do you any good, but still…)

I had told them previously of my experience with the lady who had a flat tire and had no one to drive her to work. One of them, in passing, had wondered about helping folks who are experiencing trouble because of their own neglect or bad choices.

On that day, we had talked at length about our responsibilities and what real help entailed. The discussion ranged from neighbors who shirk their duty of upkeep for their homes to the folks standing on the street corners with begging signs that invoke God’s blessing on those who help.

We came to no firm conclusion, but simply tossed around opinions until it seemed prudent to move to other matters.

I might have forgotten the conversation, but it was just the next morning when I found myself stranded in a nearby town, with a non-functioning auto myself.

It’s hard to admit this. My car stopped working because I did something stupid. The computer failed because I hadn’t read the owner’s manual.

Can I say this? At that moment, sitting in a parking lot thirty miles from home and without any evident resources to arrive home in a timely manner, I wasn’t thinking about whether it was my fault or not.

I needed to be rescued.

I was desperate to be rescued. And, someone did.

They never once reminded me that it was my own fault I was in that predicament. Not once. Even though I deserved it.

Kindness and grace.

Where I had earned desertion and judgment.

Mercy is a spectacular thing.

Spectacular.

Somehow, I’m not sure I need write many more lines here.

My young friend, who, each day, posts the words we call the Lord’s Prayer, already has the only conclusion needed for this little essay. Simple words we speak so glibly.

“And, forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those who transgress against us.”

Hmmm. Perhaps, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Maybe it needs to be a bit more basic.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” (John 13:34, NLT)

While we were still without excuse, by our own deeds excluded, He died for us. Where we could have had no expectation of kindness or mercy, that’s exactly what He showered on us.

And, He commands us—yes, commands—to treat each other as He has treated us.

Grace. Not just amazing, but astonishing grace!

I’m not done chewing on it yet. I may never be.

Maybe you can help.

There’s plenty here for all of us.

But, be careful with the dental work, won’t you?

“Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.” (Alexander Pope)

“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:6-8, NLT)

How Far Will I Go?

May 13, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“Hey Brian! Give me a pump!”

I’m aging myself to admit the words came from my mouth. Seven years old, just a skinny tow-headed scruff, I slouched along the side of the street, hoping for a ride home.

My buddy looked over as he stood on his bicycle pedals to engage the coaster brakes. Coming to a stop beside me, he admitted he wasn’t that sure he could do it, but nonetheless agreed to let me ride on the handlebars of the little red single-speed bike.

I hopped up, and he pushed off. We didn’t make it even a block down the road toward my house before the two-wheeler began to wobble dangerously. I launched myself forward onto the grass beside the street as he tumbled to the ground, tangled up in his pretty little ride.

When he stood up, the right knee of his jeans was ripped, and blood dripped slowly from the scrape on his skin. There was even a scratch or two on the bicycle. He wasn’t happy.

I walked home. He went home on his less-than-pristine steed, grumbling about the pain. And the scratches.

Somehow, I blame that event for the decline of our friendship. There could have been other factors, but this one, I remember vividly.

I wonder sometimes if he remembers that event. It came to my mind again as I considered something that happened earlier today.

I was walking to collect the Lovely Lady from work this afternoon when I saw the car in one of the driveways. It was backing out, so I waited until the SUV was on the road. The lady driving it hadn’t seen me and gave a little “so-sorry” wave as she drove away.

I heard the whomp-whomp-whomp of a flat tire as she accelerated. She didn’t drive far, pulling into a nearby parking lot to back into a vacant spot as I approached on foot.

My daddy taught me that one never assumes people are okay, so I veered across the grass to ask if she needed help. She told me she had no spare, but her daughter was coming to get her, and then waved me off.

Ten minutes later, as the Lovely Lady and I walked back the other way, I saw her sitting there still. I had already checked, so was certain it was just a matter of a few minutes before she was rescued.

But (my daddy, you know), we both stopped to check on her again.

Her daughter wasn’t coming.

“It’s complicated.”

I wondered aloud if we could go get our car (a block or so away at home) and take her where she needed to be. She said she needed to be at work, but it was nearly 20 miles away.

Twenty miles! I wasn’t taking her twenty miles!

She saw my reaction and told me it was okay. She’d get there somehow.

Well?? It was twenty miles. One way. A forty-mile trip.

I needed lunch. And a nap. Needed them.

“Who is my neighbor?”

How far is far enough? Or, too far?

Is in town the limit? Five miles? Ten?

Almost every time I pray these days, I ask for wisdom to see the folks God brings across my path—folks He intends for me to love with His heart, to touch with His compassion. Those neighbors Jesus was talking about when He told us we were to love them in the same way we love ourselves. (Mark 12:30-31)

I pray the words, but when He answers with live candidates, I want the option to set limitations.

Can I say this? The ride to and from her work was a joy. I mean it. Ask the Lovely Lady who rode beside me.

A joy.

We learned about how it’s complicated with her daughter. We learned how God is answering prayer for her in other areas of her life. We were blessed by her genuine gratitude for a simple kindness.

This world is a hard place.

Our Creator gives us ways to make it softer. Brighter. More lovely.

And, to point others to Him.

I still got my nap. And my lunch.

The nap was sweeter. My turkey sandwich tasted better.

How far will we go for Love?

What if He wants us to go farther than that?

“Erecting walls around themselves, instead of bridges into the lives of others; shutting out life.”
(Joseph Fort Newton)

“The man answered, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
‘Right!’ Jesus told him. ‘Do this and you will live!’
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'”
(Luke 10:27-29, NLT)

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Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

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